August 2014: Recap

By the end of the year and sometimes even the end of a month, I forget what on earth even happened. Thus, I'm going to create these recaps to showcase what I've been enjoying every month, what happened on the blog, as well as what happened in my daily life.

August was a mixed bag, in that it followed exactly one day after Grandma passed away. It's been good and hard all at the same time. We went to two memorial services for her, one on the 9th and one on the 16th. I got to meet my grandma's sisters, who came out from Wisconsin for the funeral. That was a blessing and I love them so much.

Life has been a weird adjustment, going from visiting Grandma each day to now missing her like crazy. I thought it would be better after the funeral, but instead it's gotten worse, because then you start to miss her. Lately my brain hasn't accepted she's gone, and every time the doorbell rings, my soul thinks, "oh! That must be Grandma here to visit us." We went up to visit her old house for the first time in a while, and as I wrote here, there were touches of her everywhere. 

In other ways, life was good. I met up with a dear friend, Charity (above) for the first time. We went to the cutest coffee shop I've ever been to and I had an extremely fun time. We talked about everything under the sun and even used Beautiful People questions to quiz each other. It was amazing. I have been writing my soul out, returning to blogging, taking tons of Instagram photos, and even picking up my guitar a little bit. (I played Team by Lorde and Superheroes by The Script, in case you were wondering.) On the less fun side of things, my brother had knee surgery and received a giant orange and blue cast. Due to my brother being down for the count, we've started watching Breaking Bad together. It took me a long time to get used to it, but now I love it. (And LOST? We are on the sixth season. It has gone so downhill. I weep for that show.)

I'm not as close as I wish I could be to getting my braces off, despite the hope that it would happen this summer. I'm beginning to hope for the fall, and I've been wearing my bands like crazy. While going to the dentist, I found out one of my wisdom teeth has started to grow in, which is when I realized it's a good thing that I'm getting them out in October.

August has been super hot, and I'm ready for fall to come. Up ahead is my wisdom teeth surgery, NaNo (I hope), hopefully finishing Petrichor, and then getting through the holidays with one less person in our lives. I don't look forward to it, but all at the same time, I'm looking forward to the good times ahead.

On the Blog

I was pretty prolific on the blog this month, surprisingly! I posted a total of 9 times, and most of those posts were about writing. I participated in A Novel Idea more than ever this month, as well as introducing you to Blade via my Beautiful People post. In addition, I talked about Decker & Beau, the writing process, Astrid, Cobie, more of my writing process, and, most recently, almost the entire Petrichor cast.

In other places, I wrote about being both smart and pretty on Radical Notion. This wasn't in August, but since there was no recap for July, I'd like to link you to my piece about my grandma on Grafted Magazine as well. I was able to have this article read to Grandma before she died, and I can't express how much that meant to me. It was also read at both of her funerals. It's a piece incredibly close to my heart.

Writing

I started Petrichor back up again after a long wait on August 3rd. I returned to it with a firm resolve to not work on anything else and to finish that baby up. I have written a total of 16,717 words in it during the month of August. Before that, I had a wordcount of 45,747. Now it's 62,464, and it will probably be somewhere in the whereabouts of 100k by the time it's finished.

In addition, I've worked on collaborations with friends, as well as plotting out future novels for myself. Recently, I got a fresh wind for my novel Something About Summer and I'm now developing that. I've also been helping get Issue 3 of Grafted Magazine together (I'm now their submissions manager! Woohoo!)

I also found the wonderful site that is Wix, and have been making websites to inspire me for my writing projects. (Because having Pinterest boards apparently just isn't enough.) Also on the design front, I was able to design a blog for a friend which was really fun and definitely a rewarding experience! It felt really good to design again. You can check out the design, and the blog, out here.

Music

I've started to make monthly playlists, so lucky for you I have some rec's. I was introduced to so much new music by my brother this month, so you may blame this all on him.

american - lana del rey

afterhours - ajr

all night longer remix - sammy adams, b.o.b

classic - mkto

sing - ed sheeran

i'm ready - ajr

superheroes - the script

all this time - onerepublic

stay with me - sam smith

My brother and I also sang a lot of Shake It Out by Florence + the Machine, and just tonight I introduced my sister to Wannabe by The Spice Girls. (It's a classic song, okay? I love that song and sing it loudly. Not ashamed.) This month was also when I discovered Sleeping at Last, particularly their song Saturn, which you can read about here.

On Instagram

I fully expected my Instagram usage to decline due to the death in our family, but I actually posted pretty decently this month. Here are some of my favorite shots.

1. visiting my other grandparents. a bit of sherwood forest. / 2. on the way home from denver. / 3. i love light. / 4. my mom got me a minnie mouse shirt! / 5. the trip to the mountains. / 6. far over the misty mountains cold... / 7. the road goes ever on and on. / 8. me and nature. / 9. a flower arrangement from grandma's first memorial service. / 10. CLIFFS. / 11. dear gosh i love it when the sky is purple. (the people in Lost don't though!) / 12. going 1940s. / 13. a flower at the church for grandma's second memorial service. / 14. rain. it's been raining a lot. / 15. colorado is amazing. it also probably doubles as middle earth. / 16. there is magic around every corner.

1. only rainbows, after rain, the sun will always, shine again. - andy grammer / 2. views like this should be illegal. / 3. when dad offers you french press coffee, the best thing you can do is say yes. / 4. i've decided to make this my journal and write whatever i want in it. i want to try to get back into journalling. / 5. my transformation into a vintage chick pt. 1 / 6. my transformation into a vintage chick pt. 2 / 7. ace and i for national dog day.

On TV

Lost declined extremely in season 6, so my brother and I are watching it veeeerrrry sloooowlllyyy. As mentioned, I started Breaking Bad. The writing on that is genius. Also, this month I fell even more in love with Parks and Rec.

I am now on Season 5. I also pulled my brother into it. We often quote Chris Traeger's use of the word lit-rally, right down to the pronunciation. Guess how much we do it? LIT-RALLY all the time!

If you need more "LIT-RALLY" in your life, you may go here. 

But alas, I must stop now.

(MY FAVORITE PART.)

(If you haven't watched Parks and Rec, you must.)

Where was I? Oh, I also watched Whose Line Is It Anyway, the first episode of Baby Daddy, and The Middle. Just to name a few. Also! I have a feeling more than a few of you may be happy to know I got on the Sherlock train. All three series' under my belt, baby! But now I have to wait like the rest of you, and these series take far too long to come out! I love this show though, it's brilliant. In addition, my mom, sister and I watched episodes of Heartland like we always have, hit the unfortunate cliffhanger that is the season 6 finale, and then just now were able to catch season 7, episode 1. Cliffhangers are the worst. Why do they do this to us???

Other Entertainment

movies: I don't watch enough movies to make it into its own category, but I watched "What About Bob" with my mom and sister, "Red" with my family, and "Authors Anonymous" by myself. All of them had varying degrees of success, but I'd give them all an average of three stars. (And no, I still haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy. GAHHH. But Chris Pratt. ♥ And Marvel!) I also rewatched 13 Going on 30 with my mom and sister, and it was just as good the second time. I love Mark Ruffalo. Seriously.

books: I'm also trying to get back into reading, so I put a ton of books on hold. I read Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel, and GAH! That one was amazing. You can view my review of it here. Up ahead on my reading pile are quite a few Sarah Dessen books and some really great reads I'm excited to dig my teeth into. You may read more about said books in September's recap. ;)

In Conclusion

Overall, August, as well as the year of 2014, has been a roller coaster. I won't say it's been good, exactly, but it's drawn us closer together, and, as my mom said, has strengthened us. Thanks for being on the journey along with me, blog readers. ♥

And now, September. Onward.